Party says Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings must be summoned to give evidence on how works were paid for
The Electoral Commission must legally summon Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and Conservative officials to give evidence on how the prime minister paid for refurbishments to his Downing Street flat, Labour has said.
Calling on the commission to launch a formal investigation, lawyers for the party said the matter was “incontrovertibly in the public interest”.
Continue reading...Labour urge Speaker to summon senior minister as poll reveals 40% of voters think Tories are corrupt
Labour is aiming to force a senior minister before parliament this week to account for the growing sleaze crisis engulfing No 10 – amid growing cross-party uproar over a collapse in standards at the heart of government.
The Observer understands the opposition is hoping to persuade Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, to grant an urgent question on Monday that would mean a senior minister – most likely the Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove – being summoned to the Commons to account for the crisis, explain steps being taken to end it, and take questions from MPs.
Continue reading...Former Tory attorney general piles pressure on PM demanding to know how residence revamp was funded
The former attorney general Dominic Grieve has described Boris Johnson as a “vacuum of integrity” as the prime minister came under pressure to explain how the refurbishment of the Downing Street flat was paid for following an explosive attack by his former chief adviser Dominic Cummings.
The government has said Johnson paid for the refurbishment, reportedly costed at £58,000, but in a blogpost Cummings claimed the prime minister had sought outside funding from Conservative supporters.
Continue reading...Ex-aide alleges PM tried to quash leak inquiry that implicated ally and wanted donors to fund work on flat
Dominic Cummings has launched an unprecedented and extraordinary attack on Boris Johnson, alleging that the prime minister tried to quash a leak inquiry as it implicated an ally, and hatched a “possibly illegal” plan for donors to pay to renovate his flat.
The outburst by Cummings, a day after anonymous No 10 sources claimed that he had leaked private text messages between Johnson and the billionaire James Dyson, prompted Labour to accuse the government of “fighting each other like rats in a sack”.
Continue reading...European commission president accused of focusing too much on UK and domestic German image
Forging unity within the European Union is rarely easy for a president of the European commission but Ursula von der Leyen managed at least to bring together two strange bedfellows in recent days.
When Jean-Claude Juncker, her predecessor in the commission’s Berlaymont headquarters, took aim at the EU’s error-strewn vaccine strategy last week, it prompted a tweet of appreciation from Dominic Cummings, former chief adviser to Boris Johnson and key architect of Brexit.
Continue reading...Insiders tell of a Whitehall in panic mode and reveal virus spread far more widely than was acknowledged
Westminster is an infectious place. A tiny germ of controversy or rebellion can spread across parliament, through Whitehall and into the prime minister’s office within hours. The windowless offices are cramped, MPs sit elbow to elbow in a Commons chamber that can only squeeze just over 400 MPs into its seats, two-thirds of the number in parliament.
It is also a place of macho presenteeism, where the Greggs in Westminster tube station often serves as a nightly dinner spot for some of the most senior office-holders in the land.
Continue reading...US firm Innova believed to be largest beneficiary of contracts after selling millions of Covid tests that are dividing opinion
Dominic Cummings’ plan to test millions of people a day for coronavirus led the government to spend over £800m on quick turnaround tests that were later found in a pilot to give the wrong results as much as 60% of the time, the Guardian can reveal.
Operation Moonshot, a mass testing scheme championed by the prime minister’s former chief adviser, prompted the government to buy huge numbers of so-called lateral flow tests from a company owned by a little-known US private equity house.
Continue reading...Our 20 favourite pieces of the year
What links an eccentric Oxford classics don, billionaire US evangelicals and a tiny, missing fragment of an ancient manuscript?
Continue reading...Chief medical officers of all four UK nations expected to formally announce change later on Friday
Governments across the UK are to announce a reduction in the coronavirus self-isolation period, from 14 to 10 days, it is understood.
It is expected the chief medical officers of all four UK nations will formally announce the change later on Friday.
Continue reading...Gag about former No 10 adviser tops TV channel Gold’s top 10 list of seasonal gags
Moments of light relief have been hard to come by this year but the annual ranking of topical Christmas cracker jokes provides some, with the top spot taken by one that has a punchline featuring a Chris Rea song and Dominic Cummings.
The TV channel Gold’s eighth annual ranking, which is chosen by a panel chaired by the comedy critic Bruce Dessau, was put to 2,000 voters who chose: “What is Dominic Cummings’ favourite Christmas song? Driving Home for Christmas”, as the best cracker joke this year.
Continue reading...It’s no surprise Boris Johnson’s fiancee has his ear. But the former spin doctor may be turning into another unelected decision-maker
There could only be one winner. Shimmying across her office rooftop while miming valiantly to a Taylor Swift song, the new Tory MP Dehenna Davison beat a strong performance from veteran London politician Andrew Boff (resplendent in full drag and feather boa) to win the LGBT+ Conservative group’s virtual lip sync battle last month.
And laughing along over Zoom from her living room, her rescue dog Dilyn barking in the background, was Carrie Symonds. The prime minister’s 32-year-old fiancee not only judged the virtual fundraiser in aid of LGBT+ candidates but persuaded her partner to join her briefly on camera. Gone, apparently, was the Boris Johnson who wrote of “tank-topped bumboys” in a 1998 newspaper column. The one who, as London’s mayor, once wore a pink Stetson for Pride is back.
Continue reading...Simon Coveney warns talks may collapse amid fishing rights impasse
Brexit negotiations on a trade deal resume in a crucial week, as it emerged talks on the issue of EU access to British fishing waters have not progressed since the summer.
As the two sides re-engaged in the troubled discussions, with less than seven weeks to go before the end of the transition period, Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, said the negotiations were “not in a good place” on fishing rights.
Continue reading...MEPs might not be able to seal any agreement until three days before transition period ends
A European parliament vote to seal a Brexit trade deal could be delayed until 28 December, three days before the end of the transition period, under an emergency EU plan.
With less than seven weeks to go before the UK leaves the single market and customs union, the negotiations remain troubled, with the talks on fishing rights in UK waters not progressing significantly since the summer.
Continue reading...George Eustice says departure of PM’s top aide will have no particular impact on negotiations
The UK environment secretary, George Eustice, has denied that the departure of Dominic Cummings – one of the architects of Vote Leave – will have any impact on Brexit negotiations.
As the Brexit deal deadline approaches, Eustice sought to downplay Cummings’ exit from No 10 by arguing it would not alter discussions with Brussels as UK negotiations are led by David Frost.
Continue reading...Allegra Stratton breaks cover to contradict ‘false’ briefings over her appointment
The woman appointed by Boris Johnson to lead his daily press operations was left in tears on Saturday after she claimed to have been the subject of negative briefings by a former No 10 official who resigned last week and made a dramatic exit from Downing Street.
In an extraordinary escalation of feuding involving new and departing aides to Johnson, friends of Allegra Stratton, the new press secretary to the prime minister, said she had been “in tears all morning” as a result of what she believed were critical briefings by Johnson’s former director of communications, Lee Cain.
Continue reading...Revelation comes as senior Tory says he was wrong to back Cummings over lockdown breaches
Dominic Cummings left Downing Street after his relationship with the prime minister “fell off a cliff”, a former cabinet minister has said.
Cummings left his role as chief adviser on Friday after a power struggle that has rocked the Boris Johnson administration just as Brexit talks head into a crucial phase next week, with London seeking a trade deal with Brussels before the end of the transition period on 31 December.
Continue reading...Source says aide’s instant departure came after he was accused of briefing against PM
Boris Johnson has ordered Dominic Cummings to leave Downing Street with immediate effect, in a dramatic end to a tumultuous era which leaves a void at the heart of Downing Street.
Cummings and his ally Lee Cain – both ardent Brexiters blamed by MPs for a macho culture and a series of communications crises – were asked to step down on Friday instead of staying in place until Christmas.
Continue reading...It will take months to roll out immunisation, and the PM’s top adviser is leaving just in time to avoid his Brexit aftermath
Monday
As many of you will know, my default responses to most situations are mistrust and despair. Yet today I listened to the news and felt something approaching hope. My mood had lifted over the weekend when it became clear Joe Biden had won the US presidential election and that the world was going to be a safer and more stable place after four years of Donald Trump. That feeling was deepened this morning when I heard that there was a genuine contender for a successful coronavirus vaccine in the near future. There’s sure to be a biopic of Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci – the husband and wife team behind BioNTech – already in development. Suddenly it felt like there was a way back to normality that didn’t involve repeated lockdowns and testing. It would be so nice to wake up in the morning without a feeling of both intense anxiety and loneliness. I have missed my work friends and colleagues dreadfully and hadn’t realised how much I depended on them. Then, of course, I had to spoil the moment by doing the maths. The UK has secured 40m doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine – enough for 20 million people – and I wasn’t sure whether I would make the cut as I was only in tier 8 (out of 11) in order of priority to get the jab. I then read that even working flat out, the government estimated it would only be able to give about 1m vaccinations a week, meaning that it would take the best part of a year to roll out the current stocks – even if other vaccines proved successful in the interim. Still, the hope was nice while it lasted.
Tuesday
Today is the 25th birthday of our son – our youngest child – and somehow it feels far more significant than either his 18th or his 21st because back then he was at university and had yet to give much thought to what sort of life or career he might want. Robbie is now indisputably an adult – he’s far more grown up and sorted than I was at his age – and though I take pleasure and pride in the man he’s become I can’t help missing the younger, more dependent version who was happy, among other things, to come along to football matches with me. I’m also not entirely sure where all the intervening years have gone though his actual birth is etched in my memory as, like his sister before him, he was whisked off to intensive care moments after he was born – though thankfully he wasn’t in anything like the critical state Anna had been. Still, at least it has never been hard knowing what to give Robbie for his birthday as he’s always in need of cash. All year he has been saving for the moment he turned 25 and his car insurance became cheaper. What he really wants is a van (a 2004 Toyota Hiace with 100,000 miles on the clock) in which he and his girlfriend can bung some surfboards and a sleeping bag so they can spend their weekends and holidays at campsites by the sea with a few other friends in their vans. Now the moment has arrived when that possibility becomes more of a financial reality and he has spent much of the last month eyeing up potential contenders. May the van of his dreams rise up to meet him.
Adviser repeats that he wants to be ‘largely redundant’ by end of 2020, after departure of Lee Cain
Boris Johnson’s most senior adviser, Dominic Cummings, is to leave his Downing Street position by the end of this year in a signal of a major change of direction for the government.
Whitehall sources confirmed he will follow Johnson’s communications director, Lee Cain, in leaving No 10.
Continue reading...Dr Dominic Pimenta resigned from his cardiology post after Boris Johnson’s chief advisor made his controversial car journey. Was it the right decision?
On 24 May, a couple of days after it was revealed that Dominic Cummings had travelled to Durham during the lockdown, a British cardiologist, Dr Dominic Pimenta, published a tweet in which he threatened to resign if Cummings did not. For Pimenta, news of Cummings’s trip had landed like a blow. In March, he had been drafted on to a Covid-19 intensive care unit, where he had witnessed suffering and death, struggle and recovery: “This sheer volume of human capacity that had been devoted to trying to save lives.” His tweet came at the end of a terrible weekend of intensive care shifts, during which he had watched patients die, their loved ones absent, and he had given everything of himself and seen colleagues do the same. And now this? “If we are going to be asked to risk our lives,” he wrote later, “the least we can expect is to be treated like people.”
Pimenta’s tweet was widely shared. By the following morning he’d become a national news story, and he was invited by the media to share more of what he wanted to say: how he hoped that by making a stand he might highlight the recent sacrifices of healthcare workers while reassuring the public that their own sacrifices had not been in vain, that the lockdown was saving lives, that they must maintain faith in it. Catherine Calderwood, Scotland’s former chief medical officer, had recently resigned for a minor lockdown transgression. Pimenta wanted Cummings to do the same, or to at least acknowledge how irresponsible he’d been. “It was an act of principle,” Pimenta says. “And the principle was: this isn’t acceptable, I will not accept it. All I ever wanted was for the government to underline the importance of the lockdown.”
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